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68 Rhythms
GEoFF AChISon
as unexpected as it was to both
himself and his co-producers, father
and son rob and Ben harwood,
the coming year touring his latest
album, Another Mile, Another
Minute, couldn’t have kicked off
any better for Geoff achison. in
february, he picked up five “Chains”
at the 2017 australian Blues music
awards, for album of the year; song
of the year for ‘i’m Gonna ride’;
artist of the year; Duo/Group of
the year, as Geoff achison & the
souldiggers, and Producer of the
year.
As it happens though, he has his
wife Michelle to thank for the record
even having happened. Sure, there’ve
been several live albums since 2008’s
American-recorded One Ticket, One
Ride, but it was her gentle cajoling that
finally prompted Achison return to the
recording studio. “My personal view
is that I’m really in this to play live,” is
his take on it. “I much prefer playing
onastageinaclubinfrontofan
audience and create music there than
going into a studio – I generally have
to be kicked into a studio (laughs)!”
Luckily, his long and comfortable
relationship with the Harwoods made
the whole process much easier, and it’s
not like Achison hadn’t been writing
in the interim.
“When I sit down with the guitar
at home to practice or work on
something new, sometimes what
I’m working on will morph into an
arrangement of an old song that I feel
people will enjoy, and other times it’ll
be sort of an extension of improvising.
I’ll just riff it! And if I come up with an
idea or a musical passage that I really
like or get excited about I’ll do my best
to follow through and create a fully-
formed piece of music. Every now and
then a fully-formed song will arrive
almost whole and when I feel it’s ready
I’ll introduce it to the live set. So I can
identify maybe five or six songs on the
latest album that had been in the live
set – the acoustic set at least – with the
oldest one at least eight years old, but
I hadn’t got around to recording it.
“All songwriters have their own
methods but I’ll always come up with
the music first – I’m focused on the
sound of the music first and foremost
–
andthewayIthentryandgeta
[lyrical] theme going is just to close
my eyes and play the music over and
over again, and it will usually suggest
a theme or images in my mind, and
then I just have to figure out what
the rest of the tune is. Sometime
it’ll come together really quickly,
like the song on this album, ‘Delta
Dave’. That’s the story about an old
friend of mine. He was a much-loved
character on the Melbourne music
scene. The little piece of music I was
playing that inspired it was roughly
based on a fingerpicking pattern that
I’d heard another player play. I can
only pinpoint that piece of music in
retrospect, a Charlie Parr song, so
I’ve drawn some inspiration from
his playing, his way of telling the
story so that the vocals were more
conversational than sung, and the
story was just such a natural thing.
For whatever reason Dave just popped
into my head and the guts of the song
were written in thirty minutes.
“Then other songs, like ‘Dreaming I’m
Awake’, a slow minor-key number, I’d
been messing around with the flow of
the chords for years and wasn’t quite
sure what I wanted to do with it until I
came home from a funeral for a friend
one morning. It was a situation I hope
I never have to be witness to again but
that’s where that song came from.
“All the songs selected for the record
were songs I had big ideas for. I didn’t
want a record that was laid down in
a couple of days as a four-piece – I
wanted the full production – backing
vocals, horns on some and if I’d had
my ‘druthers’ I probably would have
had an orchestra on a couple of
others!”
another Mile, another Minute
is available through Landslide
Records.
MICHAEL SMITH